Hamlet notches landslide for Nikki

All six voters in Dixville Notch cast their ballots for the former UN envoy.

A voter about to cast her ballot in the midnight vote in Dixville Notch. Picture: AFP

Voters in this tiny village with only six registered voters kicked off New Hampshire’s presidential primary on Tuesday, handing a surprise early landslide victory to Nikki Haley.

The midnight vote and count took about 10 minutes, and ended with no votes at all for frontrunner Donald Trump and six for Ms Haley, his only remaining rival in the Republican Party’s nomination race. The tiny northeastern hamlet in the middle of the forest, near the Canadian border, has traditionally voted “first in the nation” in primaries and the presidential election itself since 1960.

Electoral laws in New Hampshire allow municipalities with fewer than 100 residents to open their polling stations at midnight and to close them when all registered voters have fulfilled their civic duty.

Most polling stations in New Hampshire will open between 6am and 8pm on Tuesday.

In Dixville Notch, the proceedings unfolded in a relaxed atmosphere as an accordion player in a red shirt played the national anthem to kick off the vote and dogs walked around the polling centre, sniffing people.

One by one, the six registered voters collected their ballots from election officials, stepped behind a curtain into a booth to mark them and then came back out to drop them in a box.

AFP